On World Refugee Day, MD Dems Call on Hogan to Renounce Support for Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Policies

Annapolis, MD—For more than a year, Larry Hogan has been secretly helping Donald Trump enforce his hateful immigration policies, which a majority of Marylanders oppose. Yesterday, Governor Hogan announced that he was recalling four Maryland National Guard (MDNG) servicemembers from the U.S.-Mexico border, even though MDNG denied it had received “any request for assistance” when Trump announced his plan to deploy the National Guard to the border in April.

This isn’t the first time Hogan has been secretly found aiding Trump’s immigration policies.  Hogan was also caught last year when a bombshell investigation by The Baltimore Sun discovered his Administration was secretly helping the Trump administration enforce its immigration policies. Despite Hogan’s claims that Maryland was not detaining immigrants on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Sun reported that Baltimore Central Booking—which is operated by the state—received and honored dozens of detention requests from ICE.  The investigation also found that many of the requests were for low-level crimes and misdemeanors, not serious or violent crimes.

Hogan himself has said on several occasions that refusing to honor ICE’s immigrant detention requests would be “absurd,” and promised that state police will “detain people for 48 hours so that ICE has the ability to come in and do whatever action they want to take.”

When Marylanders flooded Hogan’s Facebook page requesting he join them at airports to protest Trump’s Muslim Ban, Hogan deleted their comments and banned them from his page, and then refused to grant Attorney General Brian Frosh authority to fight the ban in court.

Today, on World Refugee Day, Maryland Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Matthews is calling on Hogan to repudiate his past statements on immigration and commit to standing with Democrats against Trump’s efforts to tear apart families and sow fear:

“Donald Trump fueled his campaign with hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric and his policies have been far worse than many of us could possibly have imagined. From refusing to speak out against Trump’s Muslim ban, to locking up immigrants here in Maryland and now this latest humanitarian crisis, it is time for Governor Hogan to take a stand.  Does Governor Hogan stand with Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, or does he stand with Marylanders?  Opposing Donald Trump’s immigration policies is bigger than politics, it’s about who we are as a state and as a country.  Until now Governor Hogan has been quietly complicit.”

Hogan knows his immigration record is out of step with Marylanders, so he has been attempting to run away from it for months.  In April, Hogan tried to paint himself as an ally to immigrant communities in response to a WBAL questionnaire.  The Democratic Party annotated Hogan’s response to set the record straight and show the real Larry Hogan.